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Senate Passes Interrogation Ban

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 51 to 45 on Wednesday afternoon to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects.

Senate Republicans generally opposed the bill, but several of them also did not want to cast a vote that could be construed as supporting torture, and so were relying on President Bush to make good on a threat to veto legislation limiting C.I.A. interrogation techniques.

The prohibition of harsh interrogation techniques is part of a wider intelligence authorization bill and would restrict all American interrogators to techniques allowed in the Army Field Manual, which bars the use of physical force.

The House approved the bill in December by a vote of 222 to 199, mostly along party lines. Wednesday’s vote in the Senate was also along party lines. All the “no” votes were cast by Republicans, except for those of Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. Five Republicans and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, voted “yes.”

But the White House has long said Mr. Bush will veto the bill, saying it “would prevent the president from taking the lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack in wartime.”

Senate Democrats, sensing an opportunity to highlight a policy dispute between the White House and Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, had been hoping that Republicans would make a procedural challenge to the provision on interrogation methods.

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.